Posts by Stephen Judd
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other moves afoot.
Jolly good. How may the concerned citizen assist? I'm afraid my N&S reading is confined to my GP's waiting room, and I don't buy the HOS, so my economic clout is minimal.
"I'll, I'll, I'll, CONTINUE to not buy your rag any more!"
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Aha!
CODDINGTONSWALLOP!
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Apropos the courage thing: courage is a seconday virtue. I have no doubt that Coddington is sincerely courageous. And sloppy and wrong. These qualities aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, sloppy thinkers on a mission generally do argue "courageously" because they aren't troubled by pesky doubts and irritating facts.
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Codswallopington has a right to shower us with her dreck, and nobody should undermine that.
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I prefer mockery too. But the question was asked.
Remember DC's sex offender book? Shock and horror is her MO and raison d'etre.
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I don't really buy into the idea that either N&S or Coddington are deliberately racist
OK, so the Julius Streicher thing was hyperbolic.
But I still think the laziness and incompetence has racist roots. Neither Coddington nor her editors saw anything unlikely about her conclusions that warranted review. Why? Because those conclusions were just what they expected.
I think that they wanted to ask whether Asian crime was a problem in New Zealand, and that the police concerns were a legitimate starting point.
But "nothing to worry about" isn't nearly so commercial. So they wrote the story they wanted to run anyway. Why did they pose that question, and leap to that conclusion? Because they had come to a judgement of the likely results in advance. And a premature judgement that ignores the facts is by definition prejudice.
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It's even more fun if you mentally substitute "Jew" for "Asian". I think from now on we could refer to Deborah "Streicher" Coddington.
But more seriously, this is why I no longer read N&S, or Metro, or any NZ magazine. I'm fed up with articles whose authors clearly started with their conclusion, threw in a few emotional anecdotes, and buttressed with poorly digested statistics. I don't trust the writers and I can't take the irritation any more.
Suely there's now a law against inciting racial hatred---especially if you do it intentionally?
From the HRC website:
It is unlawful for any person:
* To publish or distribute written matter which is threatening, abusive, or insulting, or to broadcast by means of radio or television words which are threatening, abusive or insulting; or
* To use in any public place as defined in s.2(1) of the Summary Offences Act 1981, or within the hearing of persons in any such public place, or at any meeting to which the public are invited or have access, words which are threatening, abusive, or insulting; or
* To use in any place words which are threatening, abusive, or insulting if the person using the words knew or ought to have known that the words were reasonably likely to be published in a newspaper, magazine, or periodical or broadcast by means of radio or television,Being matter or words likely to excite hostility against or bring into contempt any group of persons in or who may be coming to New Zealand on the ground of the colour, race, or ethnic or national origins of that group of persons.
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And I've decided on my proposed solution.
I reckon fireworks are relatively a lot cheaper than they used to be when we were kids, and teenagers have more disposable income than we did. And because they're cheap, we waste them, and experiment with them, and so on. That's why Yamis' neighbours have them stockpiled.
So let us impose a levy on fireworks, at a level that means your average family can afford a box, but which would hurt teenagers in the pocket. We already do this with other harmful goods, like alcohol and tobacco and petrol... And give the funds to the Fire Service. In fact, index the levy to the number of Fire Service callouts for fireworks-related incidents, so after a bad year, they might get priced out of reach for most people.
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teenagers at a family party
So where were their parents? For that matter, where were you? You just watched this and said nothing?
There's part of the problem right there.
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Stibbons, I know you to be a man who seeks to understand the universe. Here's an important rule: never give a monkey the key to the banana plantation .
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That Prospect article is an interesting read.
I think that there IS more stupidity and evil about. The rise in "troubled" families is one cause. But another might paradoxically be this very policy of risk reduction.
I've been reading recently that childhood scrapes and mishaps are necessary for children to develop realistic mental models of consequences of physical action. I can't help thinking that coddled children who don't fall out of trees become teenagers who a) crave the danger they were unable to find under adult supervision and b) haven't hurt themselves enough as children to be wary of injury.
Another thing that's different today is that families are smaller, and kids don't play much together without supervision. So the younger generation's sense of empathy and ability to resolve conflict is getting stunted by lack of practise.
Having said all that: yeah, gimme back my Double Happies. The Labour party really has turned into the party of people who know better than you do, even when they don't.
*toddles off for irresponsibly greasy lunch*